Surprisingly, while there was a still a price gap between what I paid and what I got, it was a smaller gap in several ways. First off, I got several things that my grocery store doesn’t actually carry IN-STORE. The easiest way to price these more random items was to find the closest equivalent on the “To Go” portion of their web site, which allows me to see a vastly larger array of produce than what’s available in the store. For example, the spinach (on the stems) and the shell peas were only available on the web site; in store, you can have bagged spinach leaves and bagged (shelled) peas. I used Baby Bok Choi as the closest equivalent for tatsoi on pricing, since it looked just similar enough for these purposes. I’m still in a net negative position, financially, BUT I’m getting things that are harder to find than what I normally come across, and that’s worth something that you can’t really put as much of a price on.

Year 2 – Summer Week 2

Weight
(lb)

Grocery Store UnitPrice
(per lb)

Grocery Store Total Item Cost

Blueberries (pint)

1.00

$4.99

$4.99

Shell Peas

2.25

$2.49

$5.60

Summer Squash

0.89

$1.99

$1.77

Pickling Cucumbers

1.65

$1.99

$3.28

Green Beans

1.00

$1.99

$1.99

Spinach

0.45

$2.98

$1.35

Tatsoi

0.28

$2.99

$0.84

Carrots

0.73

$0.99

$0.73

Grocery Store Total Cost

$20.55

Year 2 Summer Week 2 Savings (Deficit)

($1.45)

As of Saturday, when I went grocery shopping, we had yet to really dig into this box, since we’re still finishing off LAST week’s box, but I’ve already got my schemes in mind. One suggestion (thanks, Tammy!) was to put a bunch of the items from the box (including the blueberries) into a blender and make a smoothie out of them. I don’t see this as any kind of a cop-out: it’s a great use for fresh fruits and veggies! I have to admit, coming into the grocery store yesterday and filling my cart first with produce, I felt pretty happy about what I was pushing around, seeing how my cart was packed to the gills with all kind of fresh fruits and veggies. Of course, that didn’t completely cancel out the turkey pepperoni and Gatorade I put in the cart right after that…but, oh, don’t judge.